Signal compressing system

ABSTRACT

A multi-scanner scans a signal according to several different patterns. A scanning pattern selector determines which scanning pattern produced the most efficient coding result, for example, for runlength coding, and outputs a coded signal, coded most efficiently, and a selection signal which identifies the scanning pattern found to be most efficient.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS

This is a Continuation Application of application Ser. No. 12/348,621,filed Jan. 5, 2009, which is a Continuation Application of applicationSer. No. 11/873,282, filed Oct. 16, 2007; which is a ContinuationApplication of application Ser. No. 10/612,013, filed Jul. 3, 2003, andissued on Nov. 6, 2007, as U.S. Pat. No. 7,292,657; which is aContinuation Application of application Ser. No. 09/703,649, filed Nov.2, 2000, and issued Jan. 20, 2004, as U.S. Pat. No. 6,680,975; which isa Continuation Application of application Ser. No. 08/024,305, filedMar. 1, 1993, and issued on Jul. 17, 2001, as U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,026;the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference. One (1)Reissue application Ser. No. 10/609,438, filed on Jul. 1, 2003, of U.S.Pat. No. 6,263,026 has been abandoned. Continuation application Ser. No.12/338,647, filed Dec. 18, 2008 is a Continuation Application of11/873,282, filed Oct. 16, 2007. Continuation application Ser. Nos.12/343,797, 12/343,839, and 12/343,898, all filed on Dec. 24, 2008, areContinuation Applications of Ser. No. 11/873,282, filed Oct. 16, 2007.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a signal compressing system. A systemaccording to the present invention is particularly suited forcompressing image signals. The present disclosure is based on thedisclosure in Korean Patent Application No. 92-3398 filed Feb. 29, 1992,which disclosure is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Image signals may be compressed by motion-compensated interframediscrete cosine transform (DCT) coding such as is defined by a MPEG(Moving Picture Expert Group) international standard. This form ofsignal compression has attracted much attention in the field of highdefinition television (HDTV).

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of such a conventional motion-compensatedinterframe DCT coder. In the shown coder, an image signal is dividedinto a plurality of sub-blocks. The sub-blocks are all of the same size,for example 8×8, 16×16, . . . . A motion estimator 40 produces a motionvector, defined by the difference between the current image signal and aone-frame delayed image signal, output by a frame memory 30. The motionvector is supplied to a motion compensator 50 which compensates thedelayed image signal from the frame memory 30 on the basis of the motionvector. A first adder 8 a serves to produce the difference between thepresent frame and the delayed, motion compensated frame. A discretecosine transform portion 10 processes the difference signal, output bythe first adder 8 a, for a sub-block. The motion estimator 40 determinesthe motion vector by using a block matching algorithm.

The discrete cosine transformed signal is quantized by a quantizer 20.The image signal is scanned in a zig-zag manner to produce a runlengthcoded version thereof. The runlength coded signal comprises a pluralityof strings which include a series of “0”s, representing the run length,and an amplitude value of any value except “0”.

The runlength coded signal is dequantized by a dequantizer 21, inverselyzig-zag scanned and inversely discrete cosine transformed by an inversediscrete cosine transforming portion 11. The transformed image signal isadded to the motion-compensated estimate error signal by a second adder8 b. As a result the image signal is decoded into a signal correspondingto the original image signal.

Refresh switches RSW1, RSW2 are arranged between the adders 8 a, 8 b andthe motion compensator 40 so as to provide the original image signalfree from externally induced errors.

The runlength coded signal is also supplied to a variable length coder60 which applies a variable length coding to the runlength coded imagesignal. The variable length coded signal is then output through a FIFOtransfer buffer 70 as a coded image signal.

In motion-compensated adaptive DCT coding, the interframe signal can beeasily estimated or coded by way of motion compensation, therebyobtaining a high coding efficiency, since the image signal has arelatively high correlation along the time axis. That is, according tothe aforementioned method, the coding efficiency is high because most ofthe energy of a discrete cosine transformed signal is compressed at thelower end of its spectrum, resulting in long runs of “0”s in therunlength coded signal.

However, the scanning regime of the aforementioned method does not takeaccount of differences in the spectrum of the motion-compensatedinterframe DCT signal with time.

A method is known wherein one of a plurality of reference modes ispreviously selected on the basis of the difference between the presentblock and that of a previous frame and the image signal is scanned byway of a scanning pattern under the selected mode and suitablyquantized. With such a method, however, three modes are employed tocompute the energies of the intermediate and high frequency componentsof the image signal in accordance with the interframe or the intraframemodes in order to determine the appropriate mode. This mode determiningprocedure is undesirably complicated.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to the present invention, there is provided a signalcompressing system, comprising coding means for scanning an input signalaccording to a plurality of different scanning patterns to providedcoded versions thereof and selection means for selecting a said scanningpattern which produces efficient coding according to a predeterminedcriterion and outputting a scanning pattern signal identifying theselected scanning pattern.

Preferably, the input signal is an inherently two-dimensional signal,for example, an image signal.

Preferably, the coding means codes the input signal according to arunlength coding regime.

Preferably, the system includes a variable length coder to variablylength code the coded signal, produced by scanning according to theselected scanning pattern.

Preferably, the system includes discrete cosine transformer means toproduce said input signal. The transformer means may be amotion-compensated interframe adaptive discrete cosine transformer.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described, by way ofexample, with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3 of the accompanying drawings,in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional adaptive interframe DCTcoding system employing a motion compensating technique;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a coding system embodying the presentinvention;

FIGS. 3A-3H show various possible scanning patterns according to thepresent invention; and

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a decoding system according to the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to FIG. 2, an input signal is divided into equal-sizedsub-blocks, for example, 8×8, 16×16, . . . . A motion estimator 40determines a motion vector by comparing the current frame and a oneframe delayed signal from a frame memory 30.

The motion vector is supplied to a motion compensator 60 which, in turn,compensates the delayed frame signal for movement. A first adder 8 aproduces a difference signal representing the difference between thepresent frame and the delayed, motion-compensated frame. A DCT coder 10DCT-codes the difference signal. The DCT coded image signal is quantizedby a quantizer 20 and then dequantized by a dequantizer 21. Thedequantized signal is supplied to a second adder 8 b, via IDCT 11, whichadds it to the output of the motion compensator 11. This produces asignal corresponding to the original image signal.

The output of the motion compensator 50 is applied to the adders 8 a, 8b by refresh switches RSW2 and RSW1, respectively.

The quantized image signal is also supplied to a multi-scanner 80 whichscans it according to a plurality of predetermined patterns.

A scanner pattern selector 90 selects the scanning pattern whichproduces the minimum number of bits to represent the current sub-block.The scanning pattern selector also produces selection data whichidentifies the selected scanning pattern.

The image signal output by the scanning pattern selector 90 is variablelength coded by a variable length coder 60. The variable length coder 60compresses the image signal output by the scanning pattern selector 90.The variable length coder 60 operates such that a large proportion ofthe data samples are each represented by a small number of bits while asmall proportion of the data samples are each represented by a largenumber of bits.

When a discrete cosine transformed image signal is quantized andrunlength coded, the number of “0”s is increased over all, while thenumber of “0”s decreases as the magnitude of the signal increases.Accordingly, data compression is achieved because “0” can be representedby only a few bits and “255” can be represented by a relatively largenumber of bits.

Both the variable length coded signal and the selection data aresupplied to a multiplexer MUX1 which multiplexes the variable lengthcoded signal and the selection data, and optionally additionalinformation such as teletext.

Since the variable length coded signal has data words of differentlengths, a transfer buffer 70 is employed to temporarily store themultiplexed signal and output it at a constant rate.

The original image signal is reconstructed at a remote station byperforming the appropriate inverse scanning of the runlength codedsignal in accordance with the multiplexed scanning pattern selectiondata.

FIG. 4 shows a decoding system at a remote station that receives andextracts the encoded data. In FIG. 4, demultiplexer 100 receives codeddata and, in an operation inverse to that performed at the codingsystem, extracts the variable length encoded data, the scanning patterninformation and the additional information that had been multiplexedtogether at the coding system. Variable length decoder 110 variablelength decodes the variable length encoded data, and scanner 120receives the variable length decoded data and reconstructs the originalsub-block using a scanning pattern indicated by the extracted scanningpattern selection signal. The scanner would necessarily have to selectone from a plurality pattern that was available for encoding. Usingcomponents having the same margin as dequantizers 21 and IDCT 11 in theencoder system, dequantizer 120 dequantizes the signal output from thescanner 120, and inverse discrete cosine transformer 140 performs aninverse discrete cosine transform function on the output of dequantizer130, to output decoded data.

FIGS. 3A to 3H show possible scanning patterns employed by themulti-scanner 80. Additional scanning patterns will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. However, if the number of patterns becomes toolarge, the coding efficiency is degraded as the selection data wordbecomes longer.

As described above, according to the present invention, the quantizedimage signal is scanned according to various scanning patterns, and thenthe most efficient pattern is selected.

A suitable measure of efficiency is the number of bits required torunlength code the image signal.

1. A method/apparatus for encoding/decoding wherein the quantized image signal is scanned according to various scanning patterns. 